A little ripple of mixed confusion and curiosity went through the internet yesterday when Patty Jenkins was revealed to be in talks to direct Marvel’s Thor 2. Jenkins helped Charlize Theron win an Oscar when she directed Monster, but that film is Jenkins’ sole feature credit. The Thor 2 deal seems predicated on two things: the success of her pilot for The Killing, and the fact that her quote is low.

And while Don Payne has been hired to write the Thor sequel, which is scheduled for July 2013, we don’t know much about the story. And we still don’t know much in terms of specifics, but recent statements from Kevin Feige give us a basic idea of what to expect. In short: cosmic road trip!

EW says that Marvel president Kevin Feige told them that Thor 2 would “take Thor literally to other worlds,” and that the film will “primarily be the journey of that character, of he and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and how the new dynamic with his father (Odin, played by Anthony Hopkins) is working out, as well as what are the broader stakes for The Nine Worlds.”

The Nine Worlds, for those unfamiliar with the particulars of Norse mythology or the simplified Marvel Universe version, include Midgard (Earth), Asgard and and Jotunheim, the realm of the Frost Giants. Those three worlds were seen in Thor. In total, the Nine Worlds are arranged on three dimentional planes like so:

Top level: Asgard , Alfheim, Vanaheim

Middle level: Midgard, Jotunheim, Nidavellir, Svartalfheim

Lower level: Muspelheim and Niffleheim

Back to the Patty Jenkins choice — personally, I’m interested in this. There’s the question of whether Jenkins is simply fitting into Marvel’s unwillingness to spend, sure, but at the same time she’s a choice that comes so out of the blue that